Zimpapers Logo

Babongile Skhonjwa

Bongani Ndlovu Entertainment Correspondent
ALL the hype, pomp and heavy spending has come to a grinding halt after the festive season.  A snap survey by Chronicle on Saturday revealed that various night spots recorded a staggering drop in attendance after New Year’s Eve.Revellers have shaken off the festive mood as they revisit their budgets to see how they will get through the month of January.

DJ Joe the OG, who plies his trade at Horizon Pub and Grill, said after December 31 there was a drop in attendance at the night spot.
“All of a sudden everything went dry after December 31. It is either people are exhausted or they have exhausted their pockets,” he said.
Joe said the last two weeks of December saw them record a high number of revellers coming to night spots.

“As from December 19 we had a lot of people coming to night spots and it was good.  It was even better on New Year’s eve when people, despite the rain, danced the night away as they welcomed the New Year,” he said.

Joe, however, said merriment in the 2013 festive could not match that of 2012. Comedian and socialite Babongile Sikhonjwa concurred with Joe saying there was more excitement in 2012 compared to 2013.

“People were not spending as much as we wanted but we had good numbers in the festive season. I think it’s due to the credit crunch and compared to 2012, last year had not much hype,” he said.

Sikhonjwa said things would take more of a nose dive this week as people would be prioritising school fees and other things.
“Although I still have gigs at weddings, all I know is that the festive mood ended this past Saturday,” he said.

Raunchy Girls La Musica dance group member Percy Taurai said 2013 had low business compared to 2012, which she said was punctuated by free spending.

She said Bulawayo was a bad place to do business as last year as they held few shows in the city.
“Business was there but not in Bulawayo. The city had low business and we ended up playing outside the city in places such as Harare and Mutare,” said Taurai.

She said January was a dry month for artistes as club owners say people would be crippled by the “January disease”.